, and only
joined him when he had already begun to dig out the earth with his
hands at the foot of a cliff. Polykarp was now standing close to the
anchorite, and repeated his question with vehement eagerness, but Paulus
did not look up from his work, and only said, digging faster and faster:

"Come to this place again to-morrow, and then it may perhaps be possible
that I should tell you."

"You think to put me off with that," cried the lad. "Then you are
mistaken in me, and if you cheat me with your honest-sounding words, I
will--"

But he did not end his threat, for a clear longing cry distinctly broke
the silence of the deserted mountain: "Polykarp--Polykarp." It sounded
nearer and nearer, and the words had a magic effect on him for whose ear
they were intended.

With his head erect and trembling in every limb, the young man listened
eagerly. Then he cried out, "It is her voice! I am coming, Sirona, I
am coming." And without paying any heed to the anchorite, he was on the
point of hurrying off to meet her. But Paulus placed himself close in
front of him, and said sternly: "You stay here."

"Out of my way," shouted Polykarp beside himself. "She is calling to me
out of the hole where you are keeping her--you slanderer--you cowardly
liar! Out of the way I say! You will not? Then defend yourself, you
hideous toad, or I will tread you down, if my foot does not fear to be
soiled with your poison."

Up to this moment Paulus had stood before the young man with out-spread
arms, motionless, but immovable as an oak-tree; now Polykarp first hit
him. This blow shattered the anchorite's patience, and, no longer master
of himself, he exclaimed, "You shall answer to me for this!" and before
a third and fourth call had come from Sirona's lips, he had grasped the
artist's slender body, and with a mighty swing he flung him backwards
over his own broad and powerful shoulders on to the stony ground.

After this mad act he stood over his victim with out-stretched legs,
folded arms, and rolling eyes, as if rooted to the earth. He waited till
Polykarp had picked himself up, and, without looking round, but pressing
his hands to the back of his head, had tottered away like a drunken man.

Paulus looked after him till he disappeared over the cliff at the edge
of the level ground; but he did not see how Polykarp fell senseless to
the ground with a stifled cry, not far from the very spring whence his
enemy had fetched the water to refres